Vladimir Roudenko as the young Napoleon in Abel Gance's epic 'Napoleon.' The San Francisco Silent Film Festival will present the U.S. premiere of Kevin Brownlow's complete restoration.

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In 1927, director Abel Gance presented Parisian audiences with Napoleon, an epic cinematic rendering of the Gallic emperor's life that broke new ground in visual storytelling, which included freeing the camera from the tripod and projecting onto three screens.

It was also endless, clocking in — depending on the director's cut du jour— at anywhere from six to nine hours. Gance said he had six movies in mind but made one, which is as if George Lucas had asked fanboys to watch all six Star Wars episodes in one sitting.

For anyone interested in silent films, Oakland is the place to be for the next week. The Bay Area city plays host to four screenings of one of the most complete versions yet of Napoleon, at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival on Saturday, Sunday, March 31 and April 1 (silentfilm.org).

Napoleon rides again thanks to the efforts of British silent-film historian and Gance devotee Kevin Brownlow. His 5½-hour cut will be accompanied by a full orchestra conducted by the score's composer, Carl Davis.

Brownlow is happy about the film's return to the screen, but he'll be happier when it's over.

"Oh, dear," says Brownlow, 73, with a nervous laugh. "When it was screened in London in 1980, the musicians turned the page and their music stands collapsed. In Italy, a fuse went out, which made the take-up spools stop working. An awful lot can go wrong."

Brownlow became enchanted with Gance's masterpiece when he stumbled across reels of the movie at age 15. He later met his idol, who became a mentor.

"You sensed this was a great man,'' Brownlow says. "He was so innovative. He had film shot of the making of Napoleon, long before that became fashionable. And the screen wasn't big enough for him, so he developed Polyvision," a three-screen presentation that presaged widescreen formats.

Other radical Gance moves included using split-screen techniques that required careful in-camera editing, as well as rigging cameras on cables to smooth out shots taken on rutted country roads.

Despite its length, the film is fairly narrow in scope, focusing largely on a young emperor on the rise. The movie ends as the 26-year-old legend-to-be is about to lead the French Army into Italy in the waning days of the 18th century. Napoleon became emperor in 1804, and he died in exile in 1821.

In its prime, Napoleon did not conquer the U.S., largely because Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cut the film to around 70 confusing minutes, which resulted in savage reviews.

Other efforts to screen what Gance envisioned popped up over the decades, notably a four-hour Brownlow-restored version that Francis Ford Coppola trotted around the country in 1981. At present, there are no plans to screen this latest iteration beyond the film festival.

"It's easily one of the greatest spectacles in film, as the best European silent film at the height of the silent-film era," says Robert Birchard, editor of the American Film Institute's Catalog of Feature Films. "Very few audiences will ever see Napoleon at its intended length in a theatrical setting."

For Brownlow, the upcoming presentation represents not just the pinnacle of his career, but perhaps the most powerful film experience possible. "In order for a director to express himself without words in film, he has to be extremely inventive. And when he is, the audience supplies what's missing and is transported.''

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